Meet our deserving winners and read their bios
= multi-year scholarships awarded
2021 Winners
Kaley is currently chairing the NAACP Education Committee for the State of Florida. Their main initiative for 2021 is creating an alternate system for discipline. The hope is to decrease the number of students suspended for non-violent offenses, such as dress code and tardiness.
Last year she was chosen to be on her church’s Youth Council. As a youth representative she represents the opinion of the church youth, so their voice is heard by the church elders and deacons. In this role, she has developed a re-opening plan during the COVID-19 pandemic, been a part of deciding what activities we participate in throughout our community, engage as a member of PEACE (Polk Ecumenical Action Council for Empowerment), empower others to get involved, presented at Youth Sunday Worship and led games at our weekly gatherings.
The Harrison Symphony Orchestra is an audition-based program at my high school, where students come to play a wide variety of music. During her sophomore year she was chosen to be Student Conductor and then in her junior year served as Concert Master and Orchestra Secretary. This year Kaley has the honor of being the Co-chair of the Mentor/Mentee Committee. This position has been challenging to fulfill due to COVID-19 and the inability to host activities in person. As an alternative we have been hosting bi-weekly zoom gatherings, playing games like Scattegories or Name that Tune, to build relationships with the newest members of the orchestra. Recently, we did have an outside tie-dye party.
As a person with a disability, she understands the struggles of being overlooked and underappreciated by society. In her career, her hope is to bring justice and dignity, to people with Alzheimer's, an overlooked group of people, breaking through the stigma society has placed on people with physical and mental disabilities.
In Alzheimer's research she specifically wishes to focus on neuro-biological music therapy. Within the past ten years researchers have linked music with helping Alzheimer's patients, to not only remember past memories but also have an easier time transitioning into varying degrees of memory loss. Through continued research, she will be part of unlocking more discoveries.
On several mission trips, she had the opportunity to work with Alzheimer's patients, and has gotten to know more about this dreadful disease. She has come to know some of their struggles and challenges that they and their families experience, because of various stages of Alzheimer’s. Her goal is to bring them hope as memory loss is decreased through the practice of music therapy.
As a result of a rare condition called Amniotic Band Syndrome, Kaley was born an amputee, right leg mid tibia, as well having some deformities in her right hand and left foot. Many of the storms in her life have been associated with the countless struggles that come with living life as an amputee. After the original amputation, she needed three additional surgeries to even the bottom of her stump, to enable her to continue functioning. After every revision on her stump, learning how to walk again was always the hardest part, other than all the staring eyes and demeaning nicknames people called me. Every time she stands up no matter figuratively or emotionally, she always had support, whether it is from the bars beneath my arms or her family, who understands the struggles associated with being an amputee. Her grandfather also lost his limb, because of an accident when he was six years old. He has modeled for her on how to live an active life. He has had a successful career in real estate and education, serves actively in his church and played sports.
Like her grandfather, she has participated in a variety of sports, although her passion is swimming. One of the many techniques taught by her coach, was learning to dive off the starting block. When you only have one leg, it is difficult to balance to get a competitive start. Understanding this difficulty, she decided to get creative by designing a customized leg for diving off a starting block. Her ideas were then discussed with her prosthetist specialist, and they made a leg that opened in the front, for her to dive out of it. While the first couple of attempts were difficult, she learned how to balance using new techniques. After discussing these techniques with her coach, they came up with even better ideas, which enabled her to dive out even further and faster, making her more competitive. At the end of the season Kaley’s Junior year, her coach presented her with the “Coach’s Award”. While making the presentation, her coach became very emotional as he acknowledged the hard work and effort, she had put into each swim practice and meet. Through continue work with her coach, she was able to drop 20 seconds off her 500 freestyle race time and was therefore presented the “Most Improved Player Award” at the end of her Senior year.
Being on the team has taught Kaley to be adaptable to not only her circumstances, but also other people's circumstances. She has learned to see through the eyes of others to help them shift their techniques to become better swimmers. As a teammate, she learned how important it is to be available and encouraging to one another. Even though her teammates may not have seen her cheering for them on the pool deck, knowing that she was there supporting them, can change the outcome of the race and of their life.
Kaley’s time on the high school swim team instilled within her the art of determination. It gave her an opportunity to practice perseverance and to press through difficult and challenging experiences. She discovered new levels of courage and strength that enabled her to reach goals and swim in ways that she did not know were possible. When she started swimming in 7th grade, she could have never imagined that she would become a competitive long-distance swimmer. She has come to believe in who she is, an overcomer.
Good luck, Kaley!
Camryn served Future Educators of America as President her senior year. They provided a forum for students to become aware of career opportunities in education and nurture their interest in teaching as a career. She helped them decide what school they would like to assist at and what grade level they will work best with. She also was a Children Church Supervisor, working with children from infancy up to and including the eighth grade. Her main duty is to manage and lead programs that minister to the children, by way of education, activities, and counseling. She was elected to NAACP Youth Organization as Secretary. She gave members notice of regular meetings, kept full and accurate records of meeting proceedings of the overall Unit and of the Executive Committee. She also kept a record of all Unit members and their dues, submitted reports covering status of the Unit and its activities since the date of the last report, and kept the President and CEO of regional NAACP informed of all events affecting the interests of minority groups in the NAACP Unit.
Camryn wishes to finish her bachelor's degree at Florida Memorial University and start work as a midwife in the Polk County area after graduation. She hopes to encourage youth who have undergone various surgery procedures and feel like they cannot continue doing what they were put on earth to accomplish. Starting a nonprofit camp to help injured athletes get back into shape, rebuild their muscles would be a long-term goal for her. She also feels like she could mentally coach the campers.
Success exists at the top of a mountain. Success can mean a numerous number of things, and we all face hardships that hinder us from climbing to the top of our mountain. Unfortunately, Camryn has already began to face many of these major obstacles. She began climbing her mountain in Winter Haven, Florida, where she was born and raised. At the age of ten years old she started her athletic career playing softball. Most young girls start playing softball when they are three years old, so you can only imagine how far behind she was. She was immediately put on a travel softball team called the Maniacs, where I was the only African American on the team. The team coaches taught her the fundamentals of the sport, and what being a part of a team meant. On the other hand, she was picked on a lot by other players, over-looked by the coaches, and they expected Camryn to play very aggressively, just because of what they had seen on television. Her team manager even began to call her by a male football star's name, Cam Newton. This began to be a mental strain on her. She decided to look at other travel softball teams in the area.
Eventually, she started playing for another team called Florida Gold. On this team she gained a lot more skills and started to understand the game even more, thrive, and earn many individual rewards. However, tragedy struck during our 2017 season. After a lockdown at Lake Region High School, where all the girls who played on Florida Gold attended, her travel team manager texted all the players and asked them if they wanted to go out to breakfast. After eating breakfast, they went over to her home and rode on a side-by-side vehicle. Camryn was flipped off the vehicle and broke her right lower arm and worst of all, she tore her ACL on her right leg. From these injuries, she has multiple not so attractive, scars. After this unfortunate incident, she was carried to a chair, and began waiting on her coach to find her cars keys. However, her mom, who works in Bartow, got there before her coach could find the keys. She was then rushed to the local hospital emergency room by her mother. In this moment of time, she thought her life was over!
Camryn’s white shirt was completely red, the skin on her thigh was completely scraped off, and she was going in and out of consciousness. Just like that, she had two major surgeries! One to set a compound fracture of her right forearm and the second on her radius and anterior cruciate ligament of her right leg. She was scheduled for difficult physical therapy for over a year. She had to learn how to walk again and gain back muscle strength.
Fast forward to today, Camryn is strong, healthy, and committed sports scholarship softball player at Florida Memorial University. With motivation from her family, late night practices with her softball coach, her physical therapy appointments, and personal counseling, she was able to get back to being a great player again. During this adjustment time, she doubted herself a lot and told herself that she would not go back to playing club softball, but she loved the sport. She enjoys being active, making new friends and being competitive in sports. Having overcome these individual physical hurdles, emotional struggles, and self-doubts, gave her the motivation that she feels is necessary for her to leave home for college and play softball again. Her mom taught her that there are no limitations to my dreams. To this day, her words trigger my great desire to keep moving forward so that she can one day reach the top of the mountain.
Camryn understands there are many worthy candidates for the AAO Scholarship, however, she has applied for this particular scholarship because she needs considerable financial assistance to support her dream of playing college softball. With a single parent who will have two children in college, that must pay off medical bills, she might not be able to fulfill her dream. As mentioned before, she is now committed at Florida Memorial University, which is an athletic scholarship, which only covers the tuition. However, she still needs funding for housing, meals, books, supplies, and transportation to and from campus. She is a dual degree nursing student, with extremely high-class fees. Her mom is unable to contribute as much as she would like to her college expenses. Also, it is very difficult to work part-time as a student-athlete while in school. The AAO Scholarship could help her avoid costly student loans that would take years to repay!
Being a squad leader as a freshman was the first position Luz had in being a leader to her platoon in Junior Reserve Officer Corps at Mulberry Senior High School. She was required to lead her platoon at formations and during physical training. This was a position that very few Freshmen were ever assigned. After joining Teen Trendsetters, she had the opportunity to be a mentor to students in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. Twice a week she would read to the students to help them improve in their reading and writing skills. She also personally worked with non-English speaking students from Guatemala who struggled speaking English and helped them in any way she could so they could learn to read and write better. Luz was President of the Adelante Club for 2 years during high school. This experience was most memorable for her because she had a chance to meet many important people within her community. She delivered boxes of food, volunteered at several local churches, and had the opportunity to partner with many food bank organizations. She carried and delivered hundreds of food boxes to the local low-income Hispanic families in the Mulberry FL area.
Luz’s first goal was to graduate from Mulberry Senior High School this May 2021 to honor her parents sacrifices and the risks they have taken so that she can continue her education in college. She plans to study very hard in college, earn good grades and become an outstanding all-around good student. But as well, have a positive mindset so that she can strive very hard to be successful in life. She plans to graduate from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Political Science with a History minor. After graduation, Luz plans to work at a government agency and specifically in domestic policy, so that one day she could be elected a state representative to help create change and improve the lives of migrant farm workers within their local communities.
Growing up as the daughter of migrant farm workers, has never been easy for Luz. During her freshman year, her oldest brother Juan, a senior at that time, pushed her out of her comfort zone to further explore her abilities. So, she decided to try sports and became part of the MSHS Varsity Track team for 3 years. After the first time of going out for conditioning, she wanted to give up! But with her brother already being a top high school runner, he encouraged her not to give up. Every day she was required to attend after-school track practice, do many warm-up laps, and then go out every Saturday to run 10 miles. In her sophomore year, she was only able to stay for practice a few afternoons per week, because she had no transportation home, other than the 2:30PM school-bus. Luz did manage to continue practicing some on her own till 7:00 PM, while waiting for her dad to pick her up. During her sophomore year, she made it to the districts with the team. This was a very special feeling for her, as her teammates cheered her on to the finish line. Due to COVID-19, part of her junior year and this year, she did not have the opportunity to continue competitive running with the high school team and her teammates. Yet, she continued running on her own as she used to do. Running has greatly improved her fitness with the loss of extra weight and has kept her very physically and mentally healthy.
Camryn wishes to finish her bachelor's degree at Florida Memorial University and start work as a midwife in the Polk County area after graduation. She hopes to encourage youth who have undergone various surgery procedures and feel like they cannot continue doing what they were put on earth to accomplish. Starting a nonprofit camp to help injured athletes get back into shape, rebuild their muscles would be a long-term goal for her. She also feels like she could mentally coach the campers.
Success exists at the top of a mountain. Success can mean a numerous number of things, and we all face hardships that hinder us from climbing to the top of our mountain. Unfortunately, Camryn has already began to face many of these major obstacles. She began climbing her mountain in Winter Haven, Florida, where she was born and raised. At the age of ten years old she started her athletic career playing softball. Most young girls start playing softball when they are three years old, so you can only imagine how far behind she was. She was immediately put on a travel softball team called the Maniacs, where I was the only African American on the team. The team coaches taught her the fundamentals of the sport, and what being a part of a team meant. On the other hand, she was picked on a lot by other players, over-looked by the coaches, and they expected Camryn to play very aggressively, just because of what they had seen on television. Her team manager even began to call her by a male football star's name, Cam Newton. This began to be a mental strain on her. She decided to look at other travel softball teams in the area.
Eventually, she started playing for another team called Florida Gold. On this team she gained a lot more skills and started to understand the game even more, thrive, and earn many individual rewards. However, tragedy struck during our 2017 season. After a lockdown at Lake Region High School, where all the girls who played on Florida Gold attended, her travel team manager texted all the players and asked them if they wanted to go out to breakfast. After eating breakfast, they went over to her home and rode on a side-by-side vehicle. Camryn was flipped off the vehicle and broke her right lower arm and worst of all, she tore her ACL on her right leg. From these injuries, she has multiple not so attractive, scars. After this unfortunate incident, she was carried to a chair, and began waiting on her coach to find her cars keys. However, her mom, who works in Bartow, got there before her coach could find the keys. She was then rushed to the local hospital emergency room by her mother. In this moment of time, she thought her life was over!
Camryn’s white shirt was completely red, the skin on her thigh was completely scraped off, and she was going in and out of consciousness. Just like that, she had two major surgeries! One to set a compound fracture of her right forearm and the second on her radius and anterior cruciate ligament of her right leg. She was scheduled for difficult physical therapy for over a year. She had to learn how to walk again and gain back muscle strength.
Fast forward to today, Camryn is strong, healthy, and committed sports scholarship softball player at Florida Memorial University. With motivation from her family, late night practices with her softball coach, her physical therapy appointments, and personal counseling, she was able to get back to being a great player again. During this adjustment time, she doubted herself a lot and told herself that she would not go back to playing club softball, but she loved the sport. She enjoys being active, making new friends and being competitive in sports. Having overcome these individual physical hurdles, emotional struggles, and self-doubts, gave her the motivation that she feels is necessary for her to leave home for college and play softball again. Her mom taught her that there are no limitations to my dreams. To this day, her words trigger my great desire to keep moving forward so that she can one day reach the top of the mountain.
Camryn understands there are many worthy candidates for the AAO Scholarship, however, she has applied for this particular scholarship because she needs considerable financial assistance to support her dream of playing college softball. With a single parent who will have two children in college, that must pay off medical bills, she might not be able to fulfill her dream. As mentioned before, she is now committed at Florida Memorial University, which is an athletic scholarship, which only covers the tuition. However, she still needs funding for housing, meals, books, supplies, and transportation to and from campus. She is a dual degree nursing student, with extremely high-class fees. Her mom is unable to contribute as much as she would like to her college expenses. Also, it is very difficult to work part-time as a student-athlete while in school. The AAO Scholarship could help her avoid costly student loans that would take years to repay!
Tristan was electered Varsity Captain of Lake Gibson High School Wrestling team. He was named as a volunteer Assistant Coach to help coach the LGSHS JV Wrestling Team in tournaments while still an active wrestler during his Junior and Senior years. He was selected as a varsity starter his freshman year in football, wrestling and weightlifting due to work ethic and skill.
Tristan’s first goal is to become a strength and conditioning coach for a college or professional sports team.
He wants to own his own sports strength and conditioning center in his hometown of Auburndale, FL. He wants to travel the country helping to implement strength and conditioning techniques to various schools and youth sports programs.
Imagine being at wrestling practice and the next thing you know is you wake up in a hospital bed having no idea what happened or how you got there. When he was 15 years old this is exactly where he found me. As soon as his eyes opened, I saw a tall trophy on a table by the hospital bed he was in. The words“Who’s number 1” was engraved across the plaque. He didn’t understand what had happened, but he did realize that he had missed a tournament that he had been training hard for. As the hours went by, his mother, dad and sister began filling him in on what had landed me in a hospital with tubes and machines hooked up to him. A stomach flu bug had been going through the wrestling room that week and he thought he had been able to avoid it, but he was wrong! Towards the end of practice that day, Tristan became disoriented and collapsed on the mat. His Dad and the coaches thought he had something like heat exhaustion and started cooling him down to make sure he was okay, and then 911 was called.
The last thing he remembered was being at practice after school that day, when he woke up, he found out 9 days had passed. He was in major shock and was in a panic because he knew his team had a very busy season.
lined up and he had a job to do. The doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists were all telling him and the family that he would have a long, hard recovery and they weren’t sure if his heart and lungs would ever allow him to play sports again, due to the damage that had been done to his vital organs. The reason they believed this was because when EMS arrived on the scene that day at the LGSHS gym, a lot of unforced medical mistakes were made. The EMS team forced air into his chest cavity by making an icision in his upper thorax (airway). This caused a lot of bad things to happen to him, including 2 collapsed lungs, causing major organ failure, his aspiration caused pneumonia and his heart was reacting like he had had a heart attack.
Tristan was airlifted twice from the local hosital and spent a total of 16 days in three different regional hospitals, 11 of those days were in the ICU. He knew all the medical staff at the hospitals were just trying to prepare him for the worst, but really wanted him to get better. He also knew that there was nothing that was going to stop him from getting back to school, the wrestling team and back on the mat, no matter how long it took. And that’s exactly what he did.
He had to go through total body detoxification of all the hospital medications. He went to tons of follow up doctor’s appointments and slowly got back to where he could work with weights for strength and on his cardio system. It took a couple of months for the tremors in his hands to go away when he tried to hold a pencil at school. His family, coaches and teammates were there for him through it all.
His first match later that same season, was a bit of a shock to him, when he went to do a move where it required me to really use my strength and realizing, that he didn’t have his full strength back yet. But that feeling just made him work harder. He had to prove to himself that he could come back stronger and better than he was before his medical emergency.
It’s been a little over two years since he got a second chance at life and besides some scars where chest tubes were put into him and having to be careful when he eats (because his throat muscles were damaged), he is almost back to normal. Other than this set-back happening to him the only thing he had to deal with that has affected him in school and somewhat in sports is his ADHD. He was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 6 and up until recently was on special medication for control. It makes things harder for him, but he thinks he can handle it in college.
Tristan is very grateful that he will be starting college this Fall 2021 at Southeastern University, where he will be wrestling and hopefully get to help other athletes live healthy and be as strong as possible. He is excited to see what he can give back to the community by becoming a strength and conditioning coach. He just finished competing at the FHSAA 2021 State Championship Tournament for High School Wrestling. He is very proud of his 1st place in the 2A 220lb Division.
It has only been a few days since the State Tournament, so of course, he is still finding it hard to believe that it’s real. He is very humbled by all the people that have taken the time to congratulate him, and he now sees how much it means to his family that he is healthy enough to compete again. He will not take anything for granted anymore, whether it be college academics, wrestling competition, spending time with family and other people he loves. He understands he is still young, but he now knows better how serious his medical situation was and he knows he owes it to his family, all the doctors, medical staff and student-athletes who did not become State Champions, to live for them and strive to be the best he can be. Tristan thinks, getting back to high school classes, rejoining his wrestling team and once again training and competing at the highest level has been his ultimate physical therapy.
Tristan was electered Varsity Captain of Lake Gibson High School Wrestling team. He was named as a volunteer Assistant Coach to help coach the LGSHS JV Wrestling Team in tournaments while still an active wrestler during his Junior and Senior years. He was selected as a varsity starter his freshman year in football, wrestling and weightlifting due to work ethic and skill.
Tristan’s first goal is to become a strength and conditioning coach for a college or professional sports team.
He wants to own his own sports strength and conditioning center in his hometown of Auburndale, FL. He wants to travel the country helping to implement strength and conditioning techniques to various schools and youth sports programs.
Imagine being at wrestling practice and the next thing you know is you wake up in a hospital bed having no idea what happened or how you got there. When he was 15 years old this is exactly where he found me. As soon as his eyes opened, I saw a tall trophy on a table by the hospital bed he was in. The words“Who’s number 1” was engraved across the plaque. He didn’t understand what had happened, but he did realize that he had missed a tournament that he had been training hard for. As the hours went by, his mother, dad and sister began filling him in on what had landed me in a hospital with tubes and machines hooked up to him. A stomach flu bug had been going through the wrestling room that week and he thought he had been able to avoid it, but he was wrong! Towards the end of practice that day, Tristan became disoriented and collapsed on the mat. His Dad and the coaches thought he had something like heat exhaustion and started cooling him down to make sure he was okay, and then 911 was called.
The last thing he remembered was being at practice after school that day, when he woke up, he found out 9 days had passed. He was in major shock and was in a panic because he knew his team had a very busy season.
lined up and he had a job to do. The doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists were all telling him and the family that he would have a long, hard recovery and they weren’t sure if his heart and lungs would ever allow him to play sports again, due to the damage that had been done to his vital organs. The reason they believed this was because when EMS arrived on the scene that day at the LGSHS gym, a lot of unforced medical mistakes were made. The EMS team forced air into his chest cavity by making an icision in his upper thorax (airway). This caused a lot of bad things to happen to him, including 2 collapsed lungs, causing major organ failure, his aspiration caused pneumonia and his heart was reacting like he had had a heart attack.
Tristan was airlifted twice from the local hosital and spent a total of 16 days in three different regional hospitals, 11 of those days were in the ICU. He knew all the medical staff at the hospitals were just trying to prepare him for the worst, but really wanted him to get better. He also knew that there was nothing that was going to stop him from getting back to school, the wrestling team and back on the mat, no matter how long it took. And that’s exactly what he did.
He had to go through total body detoxification of all the hospital medications. He went to tons of follow up doctor’s appointments and slowly got back to where he could work with weights for strength and on his cardio system. It took a couple of months for the tremors in his hands to go away when he tried to hold a pencil at school. His family, coaches and teammates were there for him through it all.
His first match later that same season, was a bit of a shock to him, when he went to do a move where it required me to really use my strength and realizing, that he didn’t have his full strength back yet. But that feeling just made him work harder. He had to prove to himself that he could come back stronger and better than he was before his medical emergency.
It’s been a little over two years since he got a second chance at life and besides some scars where chest tubes were put into him and having to be careful when he eats (because his throat muscles were damaged), he is almost back to normal. Other than this set-back happening to him the only thing he had to deal with that has affected him in school and somewhat in sports is his ADHD. He was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 6 and up until recently was on special medication for control. It makes things harder for him, but he thinks he can handle it in college.
Tristan is very grateful that he will be starting college this Fall 2021 at Southeastern University, where he will be wrestling and hopefully get to help other athletes live healthy and be as strong as possible. He is excited to see what he can give back to the community by becoming a strength and conditioning coach. He just finished competing at the FHSAA 2021 State Championship Tournament for High School Wrestling. He is very proud of his 1st place in the 2A 220lb Division.
It has only been a few days since the State Tournament, so of course, he is still finding it hard to believe that it’s real. He is very humbled by all the people that have taken the time to congratulate him, and he now sees how much it means to his family that he is healthy enough to compete again. He will not take anything for granted anymore, whether it be college academics, wrestling competition, spending time with family and other people he loves. He understands he is still young, but he now knows better how serious his medical situation was and he knows he owes it to his family, all the doctors, medical staff and student-athletes who did not become State Champions, to live for them and strive to be the best he can be. Tristan thinks, getting back to high school classes, rejoining his wrestling team and once again training and competing at the highest level has been his ultimate physical therapy.
Don was elected Student Council Vice President, Anchor for Thunder Television (TVTV) and Ambassador to the Law Academy to improve the morale, pride, and student engagement in our school. He was elected for the Florida Boys State sponsored by the American Legion and the UthMpact Coalition School Representative (a program for teens to empower his peers to be drug-free, substance-free, and bully free message.
He served as Captain for four years on the Boys Varsity Basketball Team while maintaining a 4.04 GPA. in addition to encouraging his teammates to "Believe" (which was the team’s motto) and win the 50% of our games, after our school had not won a game in years (2017-18).
One of Don’s goals is to major in Business Management and Law to become a businessman and sports agent. Then eventually offer summer camps to youth in sports with training on the business side of sports. (Agents, managers, publicist, technology, accountants, and other sides of the business)
Another goal of his is majoring in Business Administration and Management and obtain a law degree to become a corporate lawyer. Then one day own a professional basketball team and run philanthropic organizations for youth. His third goal is to major in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship or Cyber Security and own several businesses like a hotel chain, penthouses or car lots.
His athletic experiences where Don has displayed courage and perseverance in the face of hardship and adversity, which has been like the statement, "It's a Wonderful Life". For instance, upon my arrival at Lake Region High School morale was low in many areas for him, school lack of winning in athletics other than baseball and softball, the death of his grandmother and the COVID-19 Pandemic. The biggest hardship for him was losing his grandmother the week before his sophomore year, joining a basketball team that had not won a game in two years, and changing perception.
Although, all of the aforementioned items are not relevant to an athletic experience, he shared how these adversities were diminished with a positive outlook. He will never forget how much his grandmother loved to support him. She was truly my biggest fan; however, she was killed in a car accident by a wrong way driver while she was on vacation. His heart was torn, he dedicated that season to her and was adamant to honor her by doing his best.
Moreover, attending LRHS after being admonished by many outsiders for not attending a school with a winning program gave him a spirit of perseverance or the underdog mentality. He was determined to be persistent and change the narrative. Yes, he wanted to be a part of a winning program but, he also believed that with the proper attitude an optimist the team could win. His coaches taught the team that with faith and a mindset to believe that anything was possible.
Hard work, discipline and a unified team create the key ingredients, to winning fifty percent of the games that season. By his junior year LRHS was no longer lasting in the district ranking. In addition, Don received individual accolades from the local sports media, the school increased their fan support, school spirit was heightened, and more students started attending their zoned school along with me. Before my senior year we advanced to the second round of the District Post-Season Playoffs. However, COVID-19 hit the school and team in March 2020 and caused this season to be cut-short several times. While opponent high schools played more games, LRHS only played eleven games this year. Furthermore, he did not let himself or the team quit. He became a member of the Polk County “1,000-Point Club” the end of his senior year, recognized as the Ledger “Player of the Week” numerous times, Most Valuable Player (MVP), “Charley Hustle” Award Winner, All-Polk County 1st Team, Department Academic Awards and offers of college sports scholarships. His final season ended with joy and pride. In addition, he expanded his sports base to include cross-country and track & field.
In summary, Don was victorious and will not be defeated by any adverse circumstances. He leaves LRHS, with great memories, victories, friendships, honors, and confidence. He knows his grandmother is smiling on him from above. Therefore, hard work beats talent, when talent refuses to work hard; thus, it’s “a wonderful life.”
